The agreement would fund other DHS components, such as the Transportation Security Administration and US Coast Guard, but the House will still need to act before funded agencies within the department can reopen.
(…)
However, asked whether he believes the House will adopt the same measure to fund most of the department, Thune said, “I don’t know what the House will do.”
“It looks like everybody is going to stare at each other for a little while,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday, before nodding at lawmakers’ best hope for getting a deal — their overwhelming desire to leave town.
“You know how it is around here, it’s not Thursday yet,” he said.
(…)
One GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, summed up their feelings: “I just want to go home.”
Das politische Genick brach Noem eine Anhörung vorgestern im Senat. Es ging um eine TV-Werbekampagne für die Arbeit ihres Ministeriums, bei der vor allem Noem zu sehen war, auf einem Pferd, zu Füßen des Mount Rushmore. Kostenpunkt der Werbung: 220 Millionen Dollar.
Noem has faced waves of criticism as she’s overseen Trump’s immigration crackdown, especially since the shooting deaths of the two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration enforcement officers. In the immediate aftermath of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Noem portrayed both of them as aggressors, contradicting widely viewed videos and descriptions of their deaths from bystanders. She declined to apologize for her description over two days of Congressional testimony.
The former South Dakota governor was also criticized over the way her department has spent billions of dollars allocated to it by Congress.
(September 22, 2025)
On paper, Noem sits at the top of this empire. In practice, power over immigration policy is fractured, shaped by competing factions, starting with deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who has vowed in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination to destroy nameless forces that have conspired against the right — the long arm of law enforcement, he warned them, “will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and, if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom.” Noem will be among those at the forefront of any such effort, surrounded by a tight inner circle that can be difficult to penetrate and often impossible to work with. “The culture over there is terrible,” the administration official told me. “People are scared shitless of Corey.”
(September 24, 2025)
Noem, who is married, has been dogged with affair rumors over the years, but she and alleged lover Corey Lewandowski, who is also married, have denied the claims.
A new report in the New York Magazine has detailed Noem’s alleged romantic relationship with Lewandowski, with inside sources telling the outlet it is D.C.’s worst-kept secret.
The Pentagon accidentally shot down a US Customs and Border Protection drone on the Texas border with Mexico using a high-energy laser, according to people familiar with the matter, weeks after another incident led to confusion and exposed communication lapses among several US agencies.
“The campaign of retribution by the federal administration has been more than a short-term disruption; it has inflicted long-term damage on Minnesota communities,” said Governor Walz. “Recovery will not happen overnight. Families, workers, and business owners are feeling the effects, and our responsibility is clear: we will help rebuild, stabilize these businesses, protect jobs, and ensure Minnesota’s economy can recover and thrive.”
Under the proposal, one-time funding would be distributed in forgivable loans ranging from $2,500 to $25,000. Eligible businesses must be able to demonstrate substantial revenue loss during specified dates tied to the surge.
Border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota is concluding, with a drawdown of federal immigration officers set to occur over the course of next week.
„I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,“ Homan said in a news conference held at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling in Minneapolis.
In his opening statement at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson heavily criticized the Department of Homeland Security for “running roughshod over Americans’ rights.”
Thompson, who focused on the killings of two US citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota last month, accused DHS of “threatening our very democracy,” adding that the federal government’s refusal to investigate Good’s shooting was akin to an admission of guilt.
What to know about the ICE hearing today:
– The leaders of three major immigration agencies are testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday for the first time since the administration‘s recent crackdown in Minneapolis.
– The witnesses at the hearing are Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, announced Wednesday that 700 immigration agents are leaving Minnesota, but with around 2,000 expected to remain there, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, declared that the drawdown is “not enough.”
As part of Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge,” agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have invaded multiple Minnesota cities, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and committed various acts of violence, such as fatally shooting Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
We’ve got 600 police officers. They have between 3,000 and 4,000 federal agents. They are saying, and I’m hopeful that they are being honest and candid, that those numbers will be significantly drawn down. They are saying that the way that ICE and Border Patrol have been conducting themselves will change dramatically. So not these marauding gangs of guys just walking down the street indiscriminately picking people up, but having more of a targeted operation. This is not about ICE doing regular ICE stuff. What we have seen feels like an invasion.
Just 39% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing on immigration, down from 41% earlier this month, while 53% disapprove, the poll found.
One of the sources said Bovino was relieved of his command in Minneapolis and is expected to return to California‘s El Centro sector, where he served as the chief agent before the Trump administration deployed him to major American cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago.
The development follows intense backlash over how top federal officials, including Bovino, responded to the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Bovino, citing no evidence, suggested over the weekend Pretti intended to „massacre“ federal agents.
Several other Border Patrol agents are expected to leave with Mr. Bovino.
Mr. Bovino’s operations in major American cities across the country have sparked lawsuits and protests. Mr. Bovino, a sector chief in one part of the California border, first became a fixture after he led immigration operations following protests in Los Angeles in June. Since then, he has been deployed to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans and Minneapolis.
As of this weekend, there were more than 1,000 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and agents in the city. That’s along with a force of up to 2,000 from ICE.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Michele, I wanted to ask you about another topic. One month has now passed since Congress’s deadline for the Justice Department to release all files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the DOJ says it’s made available less than 1% of those files. And you see many people are saying, “Is he going after Minneapolis, saying he’s going to take Greenland, you know, taking the president of Venezuela, and possibly threatening to bomb Iran to take attention away?” Could that be it? You see his sensitivity at the Dearborn auto plant, when a worker yelled “Pedophile protector! Pedophile protector!” and he turned around and gave him the finger and mouthed the words “F— you,” but said the curse.
MICHELE GOODWIN: Well, it’s certainly inconsistent with what were the campaign promises. The campaign promises to those who supported Trump, and those who didn’t, was that the files would be released, all of the files. Now, that’s not happened, so — and that’s critically important.
A spokesperson for Homeland Security said, „ICE and its federal partners, including FBI, DEA, ATF, IRS-CI and CBP conducted a targeted, intelligence-driven enforcement operation on Canal Street in New York City, focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit good.“
The NYPD said they had no involvement in the operation, and a statement from Mayor Eric Adams offered a similar response, saying in part, „New York City does not cooperate with federal law enforcement on civil deportations, in accordance with our local laws.“
Alawieh, a Rhode Island transplant doctor and assistant professor at Brown University, was detained on Thursday in Boston after visiting family in Lebanon, her cousin claimed in a lawsuit challenging Alawieh‘s detention.
Sorokin ordered on Friday that Alawieh be kept in the U.S. and brought to a court hearing on Monday. He wrote Monday morning that „Dr. Alawieh is now in Lebanon.“
(…)
On Sunday, Sorokin ordered the government to explain before the now-canceled Monday hearing why Alawieh was removed. Lawyers for her family claimed the government „willfully“ disobeyed his order by sending Alawieh outside the U.S.
He then listed off Uvalde ISD, its police chief Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde Police Department, the Uvalde County Sheriff, the Texas Rangers, the Department of Public Safety (DPS), and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol as the law enforcement subjects of the impending suit.
After the report came out, the mayor of Uvalde, Don McLaughlin, said the acting chief during the shooting, Lt. Mariano Pargas, had been placed on administrative leave and that the city had begun its own internal investigation. The city released body camera footage documenting the actions of the Uvalde officers at the scene.
The facts laid out in the report also made clear that neither existing gun laws, nor expanded background checks passed by Congress in response to the shooting, would have prevented the gunman, Salvador Ramos, from obtaining the weapon he used.
“My recollection is that (Uvalde Mayor Donald McLaughlin Jr.) was upset with the way that DPS had conducted the press conferences, and they had prepared that narrative and they were going to release it,” Busbee said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News. “And then I objected to it because … the investigation had just begun so we did not know if that was a true assessment of what transpired. There was no way for us to tell or assess whether or not that narrative was accurate.”
Busbee’s office is investigating the school shooting and how officers on the scene responded.
Mayor Don McLaughlin criticized The Austin American-Statesman and ABC affiliate KVUE at a meeting of the city council on Tuesday for releasing school surveillance video from the shooting.
McLaughlin told the meeting: „I want to go on the record. The way that video was released today was one of the most chicken things I‘ve ever seen.
Another member of the city council said that it was „chickensh*t.“
A 77-minute video recording captured from this vantage point, along with body camera footage from one of the responding officers, obtained by the American-Statesman and KVUE, shows in excruciating detail dozens of sworn officers, local, state and federal — heavily armed, clad in body armor, with helmets, some with protective shields — walking back and forth in the hallway, some leaving the camera frame and then reappearing, others training their weapons toward the classroom, talking, making cellphone calls, sending texts and looking at floor plans, but not entering or attempting to enter the classrooms.
Gestern von der Zeitung „Austin American-Statesman“ und dem Lokalsender KVUE veröffentlichte Bilder einer Überwachungskamera zeigen unter anderem, dass Polizisten sich eine Stunde und 14 Minuten lang im Schulflur aufhielten, bevor sie den 18-jährigen Angreifer in einem Klassenzimmer erschossen.
(31.05.2022)
Eventually, a janitor provided six keys. Arredondo tried each on a door adjacent to the room where the gunman was, but it didn’t open.
Later, another key ring with between 20 and 30 keys was brought to Arredondo.
“I was praying one of them was going to open up the door each time I tried a key,” Arredondo said in an interview.
None did.
Eventually, the officers on the north side of the hallway called Arredondo’s cellphone and told him they had gotten a key that could open the door.
The officers on the north side of the hallway formed a group of mixed law enforcement agencies, including U.S. Border Patrol, to enter the classroom and take down the shooter, Arredondo said.